December 2024 Report

Well the year is drawing to a close and the last game has been played; we managed 56 games as a group this year so we’re feeling pretty dammed pleased with ourselves, hopefully more of the same next year.

First game in December was another of our Successors encounters, this time Royal Ptolemaic v Late Imperial Seleucid, basically around the time of the 5th Syrian War. The Seleucids had a bit of everything, elephants, chariots, cataphracts, Bedouin camelry and of course a core of phalangites & psiloi. The Ptolemaics were also varied but in a different way, yes they had a core of phalangites but lacked significant numbers of psiloi so instead had Galatians & Thracians to supplement their numbers, on the horse front they outnumbered the Seleucids but lacked armour.

The Seleucids deployed their elephants in the centre astride the road that ran between the two armies. On the left was the cavalry wing comprising the line cataphracts, the Agema, the chariots, the Bedouin and the Tarentine skirmishers. On the right was the 4 pike blocks angled diagonally away from the centre with a unit of Thureophoroi anchoring the end of the line against some hills, levy psiloi screened the front. The Ptolemaics deployed their phalangites in the centre astride the road screened by their psiloi flanked to the left by the Thracians and to the right by the Galatians. In a curious move a single phalangite block was deployed to the right of the Galatians and to the right of that the allied and mercenary cavalry, Greeks, Thessalians, Galatians & Tarentines. The Kleruchoi (settler) cavalry were deployed to the left of the Thracians.

As is nearly always the case the game began with the cavalry. The mighty cataphracts trotted forward on the Seleucid left making sure to give the chariots plenty of room 😁. The Ptolemaic cavalry advanced on both wings, the Kleruchoi engaging in a wide sweep to come round the hills and roll up the Seleucid flank, the allies & mercenaries gulped and rode toward the men in tin cans and the idiots in chariots.

For once the chariots did what they were meant to do and blew up the enemy cavalry line. One routed the veteran Thessalians and the other was just a nuisance as the other cavalry tried to avoid it until the single phalangite block trampled over it – oh that’s what it was there for 🤔

The action on the Ptolemaic right continued to be disadvantageous as the cataphracts duffed up the Greek & Galatian heavy cavalry and pursued them towards the camp.

The elephants were fun as always. I completely get the attraction of these lumbering beasts for ancient generals despite their general lack of success, you just weren’t one of the cool kids if you didn’t have some 😂

Our elephants did manage to do everything we wanted in this game, they were a bloody nuisance, they panicked, they fought and they died. Perfect!

In actual game terms 2 of the elephant squadrons died in combat, both against the Galatians, the other panicked across the battlefield.

Still with cavalry stories, the Kleruchoi horse really didn’t fare very well. One got mixed up with the Thureophoroi and that didn’t go well and the other two got distracted chasing psiloi defending the low hills. The grand sweep around the flank was a bust.

As the cavalry side shows wound down the main attraction took place and the clash of the titans began.

The decision to place a pike block out on the wing was now felt by the Ptolemaics, their 3 faced 4, so a plucky Thracian unit took on the extra pike……and died. In the ‘push of pike’ the sides were equally matched so it was all down to the dice.

Ultimately the Seleucids prevailed and two out of the three Ptolemaic blocks broke.

Although it could be argued (by Ptolemy!) that all was not lost it kind of was. The left wing cavalry was dispersed and doing nothing of any tactical value, the Thracians were finished, the centre was broken and the right wing cavalry were either dead or on the run and their commander was dead. A decisive Seleucid victory was declared.

Next up was another from our Iran Iraq collection. This was a narrative driven scenario with an Iraqi commando battalion supported by an armoured artillery battalion holding an Iranian town and it’s highway & rail links; help is on the way in the form of an armoured brigade. The Iranians are approaching from several possible routes and comprised an armoured brigade of two tank battalions and a mechanised infantry brigade plus a motorised pasdaran battalion.

The Iran tank battalions, both of Chieftains, deployed with one aiming direct for the town and the other swinging off to where Iraqi reinforcements were thought to be coming – good guess.

In the early exchanges the Iraqi armoured artillery fared badly, poor armour made them easy pickings for the Chieftains once they got in range.

The Iraqi’s did however have a ace up their sleeve with a flight of SU-22’s on standby.

The aircraft didn’t arrive every turn and weren’t always that effective but they did look so cool on the table 😃

With the arrival of the Iraqi reinforcements the Iranian blocking force got into action and the superior range and shooting power of the Chieftains took a toll on the Iraqi Soviet kit.

The one sided nature of the tank duel compelled the Iraqis to re-evaluate and so they diverted 2 battalions toward the town and left one to soak up the pressure – this worked way better than they thought as the Iranian commander was having such a great time blowing up Soviet armour he forgot about the objective 🤣

Tanks weren’t going to take a town so the Pasdaran dismounted.

And began assaulting the outskirts of the town.

Napalm strike from an SU22 run.

The Iraqi armour now started to reinforce the town.

Mechanised infantry moved up to support the decimated Pasdaran as the fight for the town intensified.

The Iraqi’s held firm whittling away the Iranian attack.

Ultimately the Iranians reached their break point (we use Cold War Commander) before the Iraqis (just) and failed their test. The Iraqis held onto the town and gave thanks to the brave SU-22 pilots.

Our next effort was a French Indian War skirmish – we haven’t done a skirmish game for ages!

In this scenario two bands of trappers decide to wipe out the opposition ie the peaceful village by the banks of the river.

The Indians also had two groups, one in the village and one randomly placed in the woods hunting. The trappers could deploy at the ford (as seen above) and follow the stream down to the village or dice for random deployment, they went for random.

The deployment for one group of trappers saw them just outside the village in the cover of the woods. Without a moments hesitation they stormed forward with muskets held high as clubs and got stuck in – the rational here being that shots would alert the other Indians.

This attack went reasonably well except for the pesky Indian leader who thought meleeing with a perfectly good musket was a silly idea and so extricated himself from the melee and shot one of the trappers dead. Everyone was alert now.

The other group of trappers had wound up some distance away from the village and by the time they got close everyone was alert and the hunting party had returned. None the less they opened fire before anybody could spot them and downed a couple of Indians but then were marked and the the shots started coming back.

The fight continued and both the trappers and the hunting party lost their leader; both failed their morale test and ran; the Indians rallied, the trappers didn’t.

With one enemy gone it was time to settle with the others. Oblivious until an arrow dropped one of their number the other trappers cut and run. The village was defended but not without loss.

Next was a return to Victory at Sea, US v Japan as always, a points game chosen from the rules, so same points but different objectives.

I’ll admit some of the optics don’t fully work for me but if you want to do WWII naval and have ships you can actually see then this is a pretty good rendition.

The Japanese were outnumbered and definitely deficient in aircraft but for a while managed to fight just one half of the US battle fleet with some success.

However once the US air superiority kicked in then large ships like the Kirishima were vulnerable and went to the bottom of the sea.

Once part of the Japanese air cover arrived – it never all arrived, we did manage to have the fun of a dogfight.

Quite a few ships were sunk on both sides but at the end point the Japanese had completely failed in their objective and the US achieved a major victory.

Our final game was another in our ongoing development of an El Cid era set up using Dave’s superbly painted figures.

For this one we had an Almoravid host under Bin Yusuf against a Christian force under El Cid.

Once deployment was done it was obvious that the main game would be EL Cid and all the Christian cavalry attempting a flank march over a stream only to find that this was where Bin Yusuf had deployed his Black Guard and allies!

After two refusals to charge which meant they were sitting ducks for missile fire the Christians cavalry finally got stuck in. Unfortunately the Cid died and some minor successes elsewhere weren’t good enough to offset this disaster. A victory for Islam.

I reckon we’re nearly there with the rules now. A couple more games and we should be able to put on a demonstration game at a show in 2025.

Well that’s it for the year I reckon and a pretty good one it’s been. The Iran Iraq and Successors is done, anything else is just gravy. Our quick dip into 6mm Cold War has seen us table two decent sized battle groups and 2025 should see East Germans, British and maybe Belgians on the table. Dave’s El Cid is going well and Gerard’s Samurai is coming along nicely, hopefully both will see some action in 2025. Plans? There are always plans but let’s just see how the year rolls out. In the meantime a very happy new year to one and all.